56
Why Are You Coming Out of There
“Ah, so that’s why.”
Volkari gritted her teeth.
I wondered what she meant, but I wasn’t sure exactly. The Director picked up the mobile phone I had been carrying and said,
“We were aware that you knew about this. There was quite a clever interference in the signal.”
Ah, now I understood. Sebastian had known from the beginning that I was being wiretapped, so he had turned on a signal jammer when we were doing extremely private things. Come to think of it, he was the one who had booked a hotel room and installed a signal jammer even on that night when he met with Canaris.
Thinking about it, he was a meticulous person. I don’t know why I didn’t have that image of him.
“I’m not a pervert who shares my private life,” Sebastian said.
Look at how he emphasizes “I’m”. It’s no different from saying, “I’m not, but you guys are perverts who eavesdrop on other people’s private lives.”
The Director and Sebastian smiled at each other. Their eyes were smiling, but why did I feel sparks flying from every word, as if swords were clashing?
Nakaban, who always walked his own path regardless of what others did, finally looked up from the documents he was reading.
“There are no problems, but it needs to be reviewed once more at Dozel & Might.”
“Any additional conditions?”
“Not at present.”
I don’t think he’s the kind of person who would mess around with such documents, but I’m not sure. Honestly, I hadn’t thought that my mobile phone would have a wiretapping device. Ah, I thought they might be able to track the phone. I figured they could intercept communications made through that phone. But I didn’t know they would be eavesdropping on external sounds while I was carrying the phone. If they can do such things to their subordinates, they might be able to mess with documents too.
“You’ve been caught up in a spy game. Thrown into a storm without even a map.”
Sebastian’s words rang true.
I’ve always thought I was strong. In fact, many people have told me I’m strong. But at this moment, in this place, no one is weaker than me. Because I don’t even know the rules of this game.
Unlike me, a beginner, the others seem familiar with it. Especially Sebastian, who has shared intimacy and the lowest points with me, seems to almost dominate this game. His profile looked particularly unfamiliar today.
No, looking again, he’s just unfamiliar. His hair is blonde. His eyes are blue. I’ve seen a color similar to those eyes in the Mediterranean Sea. To think that the color people are so crazy about comes out when you throw away the darkness.
Sebastian stood up and took my hand. Naturally, I stood up with him. Then Nakaban stood up half a beat later, but at a speed that could be considered natural. He quickly gathered all his belongings from the table and held them.
“I guess our meeting ends here for today,” Sebastian said.
“Let me ask just one thing,” the Director said, stopping Sebastian as he was about to leave.
“Did you intend to make a deal with us from the beginning?”
To that, Sebastian laughed and said, “Of course not.” The Director seemed to be waiting for what would follow, but he didn’t answer and turned his back.
I was as curious as the Director. Where exactly did Sebastian start planning for today? When I asked in the car on the way back, he laughed.
“At the very least, I had no plans when I first met you. I was really at a loss then.”
According to him, when he first met me, it was shortly after he had learned that his father was being blackmailed by Canaris. As his father’s proxy and the representative of the Riegel family, he had to deal with Canaris, but he was still at a loss. While dealing with Canaris and buying time, he was gathering as much information as he could. Even the smallest piece of information would do, as long as it showed a weakness to deal with Canaris. He had even mobilized Kouri’s connections, but there was no significant result when he met me.
“You were… the ideal type I was looking for.”
I suppose he means I looked quite similar to Lee Shin-yeon. Let’s pretend not to notice Sebastian’s pretty packaging of words.
“That night, nothing was going right and there was no progress, I was at a loss, but there you were with your pretty face in someone else’s arms, so I thought I’d at least get you away from them. I wanted to know who you were and where you lived, and even if not, I wanted to talk to you.”
Sebastian, seeing me when things were in a mess, decided to put aside his work for the moment and find out my name and what I did. He invited me to the hotel room for two reasons: one was that it was dangerous to make a move in the club where Canaris was watching with wide open eyes, and the other was that he wanted to know how open I was to same-sex relationships.
And he had already noticed that I was from the Security Bureau from the time we took the bus together. He didn’t think I was a Security Bureau agent, but he guessed that I had some kind of connection with them. He says he realized for certain that I was from the Security Bureau when we were in the Director’s office. When entering the Security Bureau Director’s office, my attitude was just like someone entering their company superior’s office. It was a place where a mere barista should have been trembling, but I just had an annoyed face and an attitude of wanting to get out quickly, which made him think, “Ah, he’s from the Security Bureau.”
“That’s when I thought in the Director’s office that my ideal type could also bring me a breakthrough.”
Sebastian started investigating me. Of course, what came up first was the identity of Armin Schnieke, an aspiring barista. Investigating me wasn’t easy. However, my name was surprisingly well-known in the industry, and it helped that Kouri was among those who knew my name.
“Armin Schnieke? Wait, Armin Schnieke from the Rotman Security Bureau? You mean that Cerberus Schnieke? Do you have a photo? I have a guy I used to work with who did a joint operation with Schnieke once, so if I send him the photo, he’ll recognize him.”
That’s right, our company did good work, but what everyone overlooked was that I had participated in quite a lot of operations, and among those operations were joint operations with other countries. Who would have thought that a SAAD agent who had personal connections with someone who participated in that operation would be Sebastian’s bodyguard?
So my personal information was exposed from the beginning, and naturally, Alfred Baral and Viviana Dogen’s identities were also revealed.
“But it was thanks to your words that I firmly decided to do this. Actually, I couldn’t find a direction for quite a long time. But then you said…”
“You know, there’s one thing you’re forgetting… I’m from Security Bureau Department 1. Trust me, I’ll shove those Canaris bastards into the Security Bureau’s mouth instead of Riegel.”
At that moment, Sebastian decided on a direction. To shove all of Canaris into the Security Bureau’s mouth and get his father and family out to a safe zone.
Hearing that, I felt somewhat embarrassed. At that time, I was full of enthusiasm when I said it, but thinking about it now, I was just showing off when I knew nothing.
As I scratched my head and mumbled, “I was a bit too confident then,” Sebastian shook his head.
“You hit the nail on the head.”
The Security Bureau is a group that’s ready to do anything to catch Canaris. What was the reason I went to Maderke in the first place? It was because Canaris incited the people of Maderke to cause civil unrest.
Of course, there are several backgrounds to why such things happened in Maderke. In the process of Rotman’s rapid growth, everything was concentrated in the capital, and Maderke, which was the administrative capital during the Blaiberg era, was virtually abandoned. Naturally, Maderke’s good times disappeared, and what remained was the sight of the rich leaving and slums increasing. On top of that, Canaris whispered, “The communist era was better. We should go back,” so how could they not be swayed?
The problem is that the Canaris bastards causing unrest in Maderke was a show to demonstrate the power of Canaris as a group to the government, aiming to make subsequent negotiations more favorable. Ah, and while putting on that show, they also robbed a bank. Canaris had no interest in the happiness of the people of Maderke. Even when the government blockaded Maderke, those guys lived just fine, and they probably wouldn’t have blinked an eye even if bombs were dropped.
Every time Canaris pulled stunts like this, the police, prosecutors, and government became objects of criticism. And the Security Bureau, which failed to detect their movements and was caught off guard, became a sinner deserving death. From the beginning, counterintelligence is the domain of the Security Bureau. So they deserved to be beaten to death. Andrea Dill has said dozens of times since becoming Director that she would root out Canaris. If she could bring down Canaris, she would sell her soul to the devil.
And Sebastian focused on this point.
Even if he couldn’t hand over Canaris entirely, if he could open a route to do so, wouldn’t the Security Bureau do anything? For example, unconditional amnesty for Michael Riegel.
“Then is your father’s issue resolved?”
To my question, Sebastian nodded and said, “Barring any unexpected events, yes.” When I asked before, he said it was a stopgap measure, but now there’s no such talk. It seems like it’s really going to be resolved. That’s a good sign.
But what about me? And what about my team members? Sebastian will soon step down from this issue now that it’s resolved, but what should I do alone?
Just as my heart was about to grow heavy, Sebastian said,
“And you asked me to think about your situation, so I thought about it a bit.”
His tone was light. Well, of course, everything is coming to an end for Sebastian now. I felt a bit bitter.
Then he held out a photo.
“Was the funeral you attended for this person?”
It was a photo of Jay. His fiancée seemed to be going out, and Jay was waving from inside the front door. A loving and kind photo.
Yes, if Jay were alive, he would look like this. If he were alive…
I saw a date stamped on it.
It was today.
